


On The Ropes

by pepperBubble



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4102801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperBubble/pseuds/pepperBubble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is trying to live a life he feels disconnected from, Steve is trying to win a fight without having anyone help him for once</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Ropes

**Author's Note:**

> So this involves a pre-serum Steve and a Bucky with his arm as it looked in The Winter Soldier but is set neither pre nor post any of the Captain America films and is set in an alternative universe where the two come together for this... Trust me it'll work as you read! (Or at least I hope it does...)

Bucky had never thought it would be so hard to adjust to life after coming back from the front line. He felt like the same man before he left, he looked like the same man- save for the metal arm now attached to him after a bomb blast had effectively rendered him useless and unfit to carry on his line of duty- overall, he felt like nothing had changed from the time he had left to the time he had come home. 

Coming home was the start of his problems. He had to adjust to living a new life where nobody was shouting orders at him, where he no longer had to be on constant guard lest he wanted his life to be at risk, where he had to get use to his new arm and get use to people staring at the spectacle as he walked the streets. He didn't mind that they stared, heck he was pretty sure he would have done the same thing if he saw somebody else walking around with a huge metal prosthetic, what bothered him the most was seeing how people stared at him; more notably it was people who would look from his arm and then to his face with almost a look of pity. He didn't need their pity or their sympathy. He didn't need to be reminded of just how much he had changed, all he wanted was to get on with his life and try to lead it as normally as he could. 

Bucky thought that coming home would be easy, that he would settle in just fine and live a normal life like everybody else around him seemed to be living. Yet when the reality hit home that it was not as easy as he thought it was going to be, Bucky had never felt so disconnected from society in his whole life. 

 

 

"Your healing is coming along nicely! You can hardly notice most of the scars now!" 

Tony Stark was recommended to Bucky when he had been brought home and the treatment on what was left of his arm was completed. Stark had become a leading figure in modern prosthetics and was currently using Bucky as a living model of his latest prototype. Though the metal arm currently attached to Bucky wasn't the most appealing thing to look at, it gave Bucky back a sense of normality; that he still had the use of two fully functioning arms, that after the accident which initially made him lose his real arm, with this arm he was able to look and live normally just as any able bodied person around him would be able to do. All that it required on his part was physiotherapy to learn to live with and control the arm and regular visits to Stark to make sure it wasn't going to short wire on him in the near future. 

"Everything looks completely fine. Of course it would though, I created this thing of beauty, it was sure to work from the get go!" Stark's over confidence in himself was just something Bucky had to laugh at from time to time, though he couldn't doubt the man otherwise. 

"How are you find the arm though? Coping well? Giving you a rough time and making you want to go back to the traditional prosthetics instead?" 

"You get use to waking up with a huge metal thing attached to you eventually. Though I'm still paranoid I'm going to electrocute myself on this thing in the shower one day" Bucky replied and it's really true. For days after the arm was attached to him he wouldn't get into the shower and would only clean himself by wrapping towels or make shit bandages around the arm, so paranoid was he that if the bomb didn't kill him, then a drop of water would short circuit the system and an electric shock would kill him instead. 

"I can assure you Mr. Barnes that my models are completely safe and that extra care has been taken so that nothing will happen and put you at risk of dying. No matter your worries, I can safely assure you that you will not be dying from electric shocks anytime soon" 

"Wow thanks, _great_ reassurance right there" Bucky replies and though known to reply to Tony's answers quite sarcastically, even this was a bit over sarcastic for him. 

"Alright, what's going on? Come on I know I'm not the best when it comes to deep and personal conversations, but even I can see you're not yourself" 

Was Bucky really willing to spill all to Tony? Well, he was the only person so far who had managed to pick up that something was going on and it was probably going to be the only chance in a while that Bucky had to speak to somebody about his worries, so what harm would it be anyway? 

"I thought that coming home would be easy. Like, sure, I only had one usable arm left in the beginning, but so do many other people out there that I just... I don't know, I thought it would be easy to settle back down into a new routine. Yet as I look around me, I feel so disconnected from everybody else. I feel as though I'll never fit in again and I just feel so alienated from everybody else"

"Have you considered counselling? I've known a few men who have come back like you and have found themselves in the same situation"  
"Trust me, I don't want anybody getting inside my head for a while. Not until I'm ready to sit down and have them listen"

Tony wasn't kidding when he said he didn't do deep and personal conversations, though Bucky appreciated the gesture of being able to  sit down and talk to somebody for just a short time, to get whatever had been bothering him out in the open. 

"Ah cheer up bionic man. Life was never going to be easy in the beginning, that's just the way it is. But I'm pretty sure it'll work out in the end, it usually does in the end" 

 

 

Walking back to his apartment was Bucky's attention drawn to the sound of shouts and cheers coming from a nearby lane. He wasn't the only one who could hear it, other people turned their attention to it as well though carried on walking as it was none of their business. Bucky would have carried on as well and left them to it had he not seen one of the people involved in the ruckus being thrown to the ground and in plain view of the general public. 

The guy himself was small, extremely small, and pretty skinny for that matter. How he thought he was going to defend himself and win against three other men twice his height and weight Bucky had no idea. He didn't want to get involved, but seeing how small the guy was and how unfair the fight way, he had to at least try and level the fight on some sort of moral ground. 

"Really? That's all you've got? I was expecting more from you!"   
"You know, for someone as small as you, you really know how to run your mouth" 

At the next punch to connect with his face, the guy was once again on the ground and the three men he was fighting were crowding in on him, getting closer and closer until- 

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" 

The sound of a new voice draws the attention of all involved towards the new person. Bucky knows he's probably going to regret his decision in five seconds or so, but he couldn't leave the poor guy defenseless like that. It would just play on his conscience for the rest of the day. 

"This has nothing to do with you, why don't you just run along and pretend you saw nothing" 

Bucky was quite surprised. He had no idea what the smaller of the four had done to deserve such a beating, but it was the fact that the people beating him up were clearly able to do it without even feeling that guilty that they were clearly outnumbering him and were clearly stronger than him. 

"Well, three-on-one isn't exactly fair. I think I have every right to get involved and help somebody out" 

Bucky stood there waiting, wanting someone to challenge him to prove he wasn't joking. When one of them eventually decided to come forward and try to get Bucky to go away, he wasted no time in proving his point; leaving them with a blood lip and having the three walk away with a threat of what would happen if they ever saw Bucky again. 

"I had them on the ropes" the small guy on the floor said straight away, feeling quite offended when Bucky let out a scoff and rolled his eyes   
"Of course you did" he replied, holding out his hand to help the guy up. 

"Well, if you had let me carry on, I would have been fine" he insisted, wiping a hand across his mouth. From first observations, the guy was pretty stubborn. Stupidly stubborn for that matter and Bucky just couldn't understand why he would ever put himself in stupid positions as he had done previously. 

"What's your name?" he asks to try and move the conversation in a different direction  
"Steve, Steve Rogers" the guy replies and holds out his hand for Bucky to shake. 

"Bucky, Bucky Barnes. Well, my name is James but I prefer Bucky" and in the midst of his explanation, Steve's eyes lands on his arm and thus begins the long questioning on where he got it from, why he had it, what happened for him to get it in the first place. 

"How long did you serve out there?" Steve asks   
"About two tours, probably would have been more, but.. you know" 

"I often wish I could be out there myself. People who come back tell me it's not all grand and jolly... but to fight for freedom, I always wonder what it feels like" Steve says and Bucky can see just from his expression as he talks about it that it is something he would really want to do. The look of pride, the glint in his eyes, this guy was serious army material. 

"Well it's not. You have to stay alert all the time, one slip up and it could cost you your life!"   
"That's easy for you to say, you've been out there. I've never gotten the chance, too ill and 'weak' in other people's opinion. There's medication which helps me keep myself healthy, but it's my asthma that failed me. So I decided to become an artist instead, it's the next best thing I enjoy anyway" 

"Besides fighting" Bucky substitutes and it's when he's sharing a laugh with Steve that he thinks he's found a new friend and definitely wants to keep him, even if it means he'll have to keep him out of fights in this new found friendship. 

"Come on, we need to get you cleaned up, you look terrible" he says but Steve is once again being stubborn and insists that he's fine, but the state he's in suggests anything but. 

"I can see you wincing. Come on, I'll even take you just in case those guys try jumping you again" Bucky replies and wraps an arm around Steve's shoulder to make sure he doesn't get away that easily and begins guiding him out from the lane. 

"Jerk" he an hear Steve mutter but there's a grin on his face and Bucky can only reply as appropriate   
"Punk" 


End file.
